


Literally, anything

by an_english_girl



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-18 08:51:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11870847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/an_english_girl/pseuds/an_english_girl
Summary: "I can steal anything."  When, how and why did Gen steal Ornon's sheep?





	Literally, anything

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Prinzenhasserin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prinzenhasserin/gifts).



> A/N: I've had this fic in the to-be-finished pile for two years, so thank you for the prompt to make me get it done!

“It’s probably only about three and a half spare minutes this time, not five,” said the Queen of Eddis, dropping into a chair opposite the Queen’s Thief in the Eddisian royal library. “I have to have a word with Ornon, shortly.”

She got a mock sympathetic grin in reply. “Speak to Ornon, or listen to him?”

“Oh, probably the latter.”

“Ornon always has something to say,” Eugenides observed.

“Hmm.” The queen nodded, and settled herself more into the chair. “Like you,” she added.

“I-!”

Eddis shook her head at him. “You … don’t like to think you might be like Ornon,” she said with a smile. “But right now, you are meant to be being like Ornon-with-something-to-say. I’m here for the next probably now only two minute instalment of your adventures. The sound bubble burst on your horses,” she prompted. “By the way, Ornon doesn’t believe that bit. He says you couldn’t steal things that made a noise. Not –! not –!” The queen raised both hands in a hastily calming gesture. “Not that I’m saying you didn’t steal the horses, nor that the gods didn’t muffle their feet. Just that Ornon finds it hard to imagine you with a horse. I’ll make him write to the Magus for confirmation. Go on.”

There was silence from the chair opposite. Eddis looked across in momentary impatience, and then in alarm. When Gen was quiet, it meant one of only three things. Either he was seriously hurt, but he hadn’t been that when she’d entered the library; or he’d been fighting with his father, but that wasn’t the case either; or he was plotting something so outrageous her entire court would be at her throne howling for his blood. If the first two were ruled out...

“Eugenides!” she said sharply. There was no doubt about it. He was grinning. “You are _not_ to rifle the royal stables!”

“Who said anything about the royal stables?”

“That’s just the point! You didn’t!” A knock sounded politely on the library door, and Eddis scrambled to her feet with a warning glare at Eugenides. “If you steal so much as _one_ horse,” she warned, with the thought of the livery stable in Attolia, “I’ll make you go somewhere on it!” 

He looked so stricken by this threat that she relented, even as another knock came a little more impatiently. “Gen,” she coaxed. “Ornon’s not really doubting you; he’s just a little up-tight and anxious at the moment. He’s worrying about those new pregnant pedigree sheep of his. They cost him a lot of money.”

“He should get a sheepdog, then,” said Eugenides thoughtfully.

“Gen! It’s their lambing he’s worried about!”

“So, so.” Eugenides shrugged, and waved one hand at the now decidedly impatient knock on the door. “A clever sheepdog, then. Go and take his mind off it for a bit.”

~:~  
“How are the sheep?” the Minister of War asked Ornon at a formal court dinner. 

“Still expecting,” said Ornon promptly, as he had for weeks. “Any day now.”

“Oh,” said the minister. “I thought I heard that the first lambs had come. Presumably somebody else’s.”

~:~

“How are the sheep?” Hegite asked Ornon at an afternoon court session. 

“Still expecting,” said Ornon promptly, as he had for weeks. “Any day now.”

“Oh,” said Hegite. “I thought Agape was saying something about the lambs being sweet. Presumably somebody else’s.”

~:~

“How are the sheep?” Aulus asked Ornon loudly at the edge of a morning sword training session.

“Still expect...” It wasn’t the time he’d been saying this for, that struck Ornon suddenly, so much as the noises of suppressed mirth from the men around him. Ten minutes later he was in the small stables converted to sheep sheds at the back of his house. Two minutes after that he was in the palace Throne Room.

“Your Majesty!” he wailed, quite disregarding the crowd into which he had burst, still cloaked and bedecked in stray bits of straw. “All My Sheep!! Every one of my pedigree lambs STOLEN!!! He’s been stealing them at birth! I shall be ruined! And if he’s been offering them to his god, they’ll be dead...! Every one!”

“Ornon! Ornon!” The queen was obliged to hold up one hand for a while before the wails of anger paused. “Ornon,” she said firmly. “If you want to know where your sheep are, go and ask Eugenides. I don’t think he’s into gratuitous slaughter of lambs, even if you did-”

Ornon was gone.

He didn’t stop to take his leave of the queen, he didn’t stop to knock on the library door, he didn’t slow up any in slamming it open – then he stopped. The Queen’s Thief was lying in a deliberately casual pose on his stomach on the hearth rug, reading. One foot rose and waved in greeting; one foot on which remained tell-tale traces of manure.

“The priestesses are having a lovely time bottle-feeding them,” said the owner of the foot. “The temple flock will be very much improved, with the addition of those expensive bloodlines.” Eugenides rolled over and sat up. “You will be a man most favoured by the gods. We won’t let them forget it.”

He flopped back to his scroll, even as Ornon spluttered. “I’ll remind them, so they won’t be angry at your having doubted their ability to make horses – and sheep – silent.” The foot waved in dismissal. “I’ll bleat when I see you.”

~:~:~


End file.
